


Perfect match

by ephemeralfangirl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Blind Date, Dating Agency, F/F, Fluff, Soulmates, matchmaker alex danvers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralfangirl/pseuds/ephemeralfangirl
Summary: When a new dating agency becomes all the rage, Alex signs up Kara in the hopes she'll find her soulmate.





	Perfect match

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, this is the my entry for Supercat week day 6. The prompt was dating agency.

Kara stopped at the door of the restaurant and pulled her dress down a little, then she pulled the top of it up a bit, undoing her down pull completely. She was going to kill her sister. Eliza would just have to forgive her for it. Given the reason, Kara was sure she would absolutely understand, she might even help Kara hide the body. She put her hand on the handle of the door and let it go. She huffed and turned to walk away. She was an adult, darn it, she didn’t have to go through with this just because her sister had made the arrangements. Her phone chirped a text.

**_Don’t you dare! Get in that restaurant right now. You won’t regret it._ **

That was a lie. Kara already regretted it. She had been regretting it since Alex had told her about her plan. She’d especially regretted it when, an hour ago, Alex and Maggie had shown up at her apartment with this dangerous glint in their eyes and an overpriced, flimsy dress. She’d been fine in the jeans and blouse she had chosen. There was no need to make a fuss when she just humouring them and going on this blind date just so they would leave her alone. Her phone alerted again. 

**_Get in there. NOW!_ **

Kara looked around and couldn’t see where the two idiots were hidden. But then she saw a surveillance camera and stared at it, horrified. She hurried into the restaurant if only to stop Alex from spying on her. She walked to the hostess station, feeling extremely out of place in the upscale restaurant.

“Hi, I have a reservation under Aphrodite,” the name of the reservation itself was mortifying. The hostess gave her a look that Kara could only interpret as pitying. 

“Follow me,” she lead Kara to a secluded corner table sure to promote romance and intimacy. Depending on whom her dining companion was, it just might promote the serial killer feeling. With a disgusted sigh, she sat down facing the door and regretted it immediately. Now she’d be looking up every time anyone walked in. She’d look like one of those whack a mole games. It wasn’t that she wanted to make that great of a first impression, but still. 

“Can I bring you a drink to start?”

“No, I’ll wait for my … friend,” the hostess nodded and left Kara to her misery. She pulled out her phone.

**_I hate you._ **

**_Maybe now, but you won’t for long. ;)_ **

Kara gave her phone a baleful look in lieu of giving it to her sister. There was no way she’d be glad. She hadn’t even wanted Alex to sign her up to that stupid dating agency in the first place. Soulmates, such a cheesy name. Even Kara couldn’t find it cute. OK, maybe if she wasn’t so bitter about the whole thing, she might have found it charming, but right now she hated everything about it. Alex had heard about it at the alien bar. It was run by this glamorous shapeshifter who fronted it as “ _ an amazing experience where our unique computer algorithm finds your perfect match with 99% accuracy.”  _

What the advertisement didn’t say was that this particular race of aliens saw the energy links between beings. They could sort out the different types from friend to family to lover and they followed the thread to what their kind saw as the pair bond. They’d had an amazing success rate. Their work was done for every individual link, thus insuring their success rate and people raved about their brand new loves. It was the new rage.

The thing Kara hadn’t told Alex about her “genius” plan is that Kara didn’t want them to find her a pair bond. She had met the owner of the agency at the Bar and she had offered to read her to find her person. Kara had turned her down. She hadn’t needed the help. Kara already knew who she was fated to, she didn’t need someone else to tell her who she couldn’t have. And if she couldn’t have her true mate, then, she didn’t want to form a pair bond. For most people it was lovey-dovey stuff they saw in movies, but for Kara it meant more. It was in her Kryptonian nature to form that bond for life. It wasn’t like human relationships when just walking out was an option. She would live and die by that bond. And she could only create it with one person, who had never even been a viable option.

She was sullenly sliding her empty wine glass by the base when she noticed the perfume. Kara looked up and saw Cat Grant following the hostess. Her mouth fell open as Cat sent the hostess back to her station and kept walking toward Kara. Kara closed her mouth, but her breath was short and not a single thought passed her head except: Wow. It wasn’t very articulate, but after not seeing Cat for months her beauty was like getting hit with a sledgehammer between the eyes. Her hair was a little longer and the curls were perfect as always. The bordeaux sheath dress wasn’t a shock, Kara was used to seeing Cat in these types of dresses. However, the cut outs on each side of her rib cage short circuited her brain and they were a siren call to Kara’s desire. She wanted to reach out to see if the pale skin was as soft as she’d always imagined it to be. More than any of that, it was her face that stole Kara’s breath. It was the half smirk, the sparkle in the green eyes that made Kara glad she had left her couch tonight. Even if she only got to bask in Cat’s presence for a minute before the person she was meeting arrived, it was worth it.

“Kara,” the two syllables still sent a shiver down her spine, she would never tire of hearing and seeing Cat enunciate her name. After two years of Kiera, her real name was more intimate than any words of endearment.

“Miss Grant,” there was wonder in the way she said her name, giving away her feelings, but she couldn’t help it. She was staring at Cat and she couldn’t help that either. She was here.

“Please, call me Cat, I’m not your boss anymore, not even the absent one,” Kara was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining the disappointment. She looked down at the table while Cat sat in front of her. 

“Oh, I’m waiting for someone.” She didn’t want to have this conversation with Cat. She knew it was something they had to discuss, but if she only had a few minutes with her former boss, her complete failure as a reporter wasn’t something she wanted to make a case for.

“Not anymore, Aphrodite,” Kara couldn’t help the shock she felt and she knew it showed on her face, she saw Cat jaw tightened.

“I can’t be your perfect match. You’re all,” she gestured to all of Cat, lacking the words to tell her how beautiful she was and how inadequate Kara was. “And I’m just…” She passed a hand in front of herself, as if it was enough evidence for Cat to understand how ludicrous it was. She saw her face soften.

“Be that as it may, we’ve been matched for the evening. At least we know we can tolerate each other’s company relatively well.”

It wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement, but coming from Cat, it made Kara shine. Their waiter came by with their menus and Cat ordered a bottle of wine Kara didn’t want to know the price of. They let him walk away before opening their menus. Kara repeatedly glanced at Cat over the top of hers. 

“Ask if you’re going to keep wondering about it,” Cat hadn’t even looked up.

“What are you doing here?”

“In National City, or at this table specifically?” She sounded bored, but Kara knew her well enough to see the front for what it was. There was a glaring vulnerability in both issues and Kara wanted to cradle Cat gently and protect her. That had always been part of the problem.

“Let’s start with the table.”

“My mother…” she took a pause to prep herself, and Kara couldn’t help the sympathetic wince. Cat lifted her eyebrows with a roll of her eyes. “Declared that it was unseemly for a woman my age to be both unemployed and single.”

Rage sparked low in Kara’s gut. She’d never understand Cat’s mother. She had a daughter who was brilliant, funny, talented and loving beyond what that witch deserved, how could she not appreciate it? How could she treat her so callously when Cat tried time and again to have a relationship with that woman? When she replied, her voice was tight, and the barely suppressed anger made it shake. “You’re not unemployed, you took a sabbatical from being the CEO of a Fortune 100 company. Which you’ve been running flawlessly for years, I think you’ve deserved it.”

“Yes, well, as you can imagine, that argument worked like a charm with my mother,” if the tone was airy, the pain behind it wasn’t. 

Kara could only imagine how that particular conversation had gone. She didn’t want to think about how small Cat had probably felt, enough to actually show up on this date. Unable to stop herself, Kara reached forward and put her hand on Cat’s wrist. She stroked her thumb on it, feeling the delicate bones under the skin. “If you want, I have some pull with people, I could send them to give her a good talking to.”

The unexpected suggestion made Cat’s eyes widen before she burst out laughing. In all the years she’d worked for Cat, she hadn’t managed that particular feat. Smiles, sure, chuckles on her best days, but never a belly laugh like this. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. It lit up Cat’s entire face and if Kara had thought she was beautiful before, it was nothing compared to this. She was built for laughter and happiness, it killed Kara a little that she didn’t get enough of both. She slid her hand from Cat’s wrist up to take her hand in hers, squeezing her fingers gently.

“Oh, that’d be a sight, you all-American hero, assuming the stance while you stutter some kind of vague threat,” she laughed again, leaning back against her chair to appreciate it even more, her hand flipping over to hold Kara’s.

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I’m very scary,” she should be offended, shouldn’t she? But instead she was smiling, not even concerned that Cat had so casually referred to her alter ego as if she’d been told, rather than just having the intrinsic knowledge of whom Kara also was. To be able to make Cat laugh in the face of her mother’s casual cruelty was worth more than an illusory secrecy.

With a last chuckle, Cat put her chin on her hand and appraised Kara with sparkling eyes. “No darling, you’re not. What you are is righteous. Your power stems from their guilt at being wrong. You can’t play on that with my mother, but I appreciate the offer.”

“Anytime,” she smiled at Cat and turned back to her menu, putting it down on the table, unwilling to use both her hands and let go of Cat. After a second, the question came.

“What are *you* doing here?”

Kara couldn’t help the disgusted noise that came from deep, deep inside. “My sister is deliriously in love with her girlfriend. Most of the time, I think it’s really cute and she deserves all the happiness in the world. But it also means, and this is where it’s a lot less cute, that she believes that everybody should be just as happy as she is.”

The waiter came back with their wine and Kara was forced to let go of Cat’s hand as they placed their order. She hoped her answer had been sufficient. It wasn’t.

“So as her sister, it’s even more important that you be happily settled?”

“Apparently. Nobody’s safe though. She set up Winn on three blind dates so far, she keeps giving numbers to James, Susan won’t talk to her anymore, Lucy chose an overseas deployment and J’onn has made it clear that she is not to even think about it. Those are only the ones I know of. I’m scared of this previously unseen side of my sister.”

Kara shuddered delicately and took a sip of her wine.

“So this wasn’t your idea?” There was an edge to Cat’s voice that Kara wasn’t sure about. It sounded both sad and resigned and she didn’t like it.

“Well, no. She signed me up, showed up at my apartment with a dress, gave me the restaurant’s address and told me that I wouldn’t regret it,” Kara said with a blush, she wondered if Alex had known who her date would be to say with such conviction that Kara would be pleased. Knowing her sister, it was entirely possible. Her feelings for Cat would have been obvious to Alex. She wondered if she had bribed the Agency to match her with Cat.

“Oh?” it was a simple sound, but there was hope in there. Maybe Kara was projecting.

“Yeah, so far she’s very right,” it might have been smarter to downplay the truth, but it was hard to do when she was staring at Cat as if she’d been starved for the sight of her. Which, to be perfectly honest, she had been. The last months without Cat had been excruciating, professionally, but mostly personally. It hadn’t occurred to her until Cat was gone how much she had come to depend on and rely on her. Without her, she had no anchor point and she’d led herself astray. Tonight was the first time she’d felt right in months

“I agree,” they shared a smile as the waiter brought their appetizer. Cat put her serviette on her lap and asked in a tone that was going for nonchalant, but that just missed the mark to Kara’s trained ears. “I noticed that James also happens to be a victim of your sister’s evil plot. What happened there?”

Kara sighed and aggressively stabbed her calamari, stopping just short of shattering the dish. “What didn’t happen? But that was later, I guess. We couldn’t even manage one date.”

“Too busy?”

“Yes,” she took a bite, the taste not even registering. “No, that’s an excuse. James was like…” she searched for the right word. “Kale.”

“Excuse me?” Cat was genuinely baffled and Kara knew she wasn’t explaining herself properly.

“You know, kale? It’s pretty, it’s interesting and good for you, everybody says you should eat it and you convince yourself that you like it cause you think you should? Like that.”

Cat nodded thoughtfully, as if the food metaphor was the most illuminating thing Kara had ever said. “And what you really wanted was?”

“A cupcake,” the statement came out unbidden and Cat looked up sharply. Both of them were brought back to that box of freakishly expensive cupcakes Cat had ordered. She’d left three in Kara’s desk after the Livewire showdown, as a reward or a thank you, Kara would never know. She remembered taking them out to work in the sun on the balcony with Cat and she had looked positively green when Kara had offered her one. She’d stuck with the mint tea she had requested. She had let Kara enjoy her treat and the silence between them had been peaceful and almost playful. At that moment, with the sun shining on her and an indulgent smile on her lips as she watched Kara devour her treats, she had made Kara’s heart stop and she’d looked like the vision of everything Kara couldn’t have.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known that she was in love with Cat or that Cat was way out of her league, but the truth of those two statements had been driven home forcefully in that moment. Not just because of the power imbalance between them, or because Cat was everything she wasn’t or because Kara wasn’t good enough. No, it was because all Kara could offer her was more enemies, more danger and more uncertainty. Love wasn’t much in the face of that. She’d gone home that night and she’d kissed James for the first time. It was the right thing to do, it was something he’d been prepared for, being in a relationship with a superhero, and it was something she could put the brakes on at any time. Loving Cat wouldn’t be like that. It would be everything.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face because Cat frowned as she leaned forward. “You don’t want to want the cupcake?”

“I’m … this cupcake is not just a cupcake, it’s THE cupcake. It’s something so rare and wonderful and smart and beautiful that I just know it can’t be mine because I’m just … not worthy,” the words were hard to say, but at the same time, it felt as if a weight had been taken off her heart.

She finally dared look up at Cat. There was pain on her face and more than a spark of anger. “Doesn’t the cupcake get a choice in this?”

“I didn’t feel like it was needed. Why would you want me?” Kara must have seemed extremely dumbfounded, so much so that Cat rolled her eyes, and got up from her seat. 

She came to stand next to Kara and took her chin in her hand. Kara held her breath and when Cat pressed their lips together, it sent a jolt through them both. Kara felt her entire body flush at the contact. Cat kissed her thoroughly, holding nothing back, not her want, not her longing, not the hunger that bordered on desperate after months of suppression.

Relief made Kara almost light-headed as she cradled Cat’s face between her hands even if she felt selfish to take this much. In idle moments, she had imagined this, imagined the feel of Cat under her fingers, the way she would taste, the sounds she would make. Nothing Kara had come up with came close to reality. Cat pulled back and stroked her thumb along Kara’s jawline.

“How could I not want you?” She spoke softly, but Kara heard her voice shake. She looked at Cat with both awe and wariness.

“You shouldn’t. You should run the other way, Cat, I’m dangerous,” Kara didn’t want to talk her out of it. She knew she had to, but Rao, all she really wanted was to put her arms around Cat and hope the world didn’t come to an end.

“Oh, Kara, I’ve been running for months, where did that get us?” She sounded so tired and heartsick. It was not a tone Kara would have associated with Cat, ever. She brought a hand up and squeezed her hip.

“What do you want to do?”

“I’m going to pay this bill, we’re going to go home and we’re going to discuss this ridiculous idea you have that you’re not good enough for me in a more private setting. Truth be told, it’s the other way around, and you have to know that,” Cat was already taking money out of her clutch, putting it on the table. She stood next to Kara and offered her hand. “Are you coming?”

Kara considered the extended hand for half a second before she took it. It wasn’t smart and she was going to hurt Cat, but she was tired of fighting this. Cat smiled at her and they walked out hand in hand.

—

The next morning, she pulled her phone out from under her dress and shot a quick text to Alex.

_ You were right. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @elizadunc for the beta and being chill with all the follow up questions.


End file.
